Embarassment

Thinking back over the years and how my size has embarrassed my children is mortifying to me.  Children can be cruel and I know that one child (and I am sure many others) picked on my children because their mom was fat.  I spoke to the parents of one child because he lived just a couple of houses away, and while his parents were both very tall and thin, he had an aunt who at the time was much larger than me, and honestly, you should never pick on someone else because of someone else in their family for something they have no control over.  His parents were upset and made him apologize.  I hope it made a lasting impression and he learned not to judge people based on size.

When my oldest son was in the 6^th grade he had a class trip to Six Flags over New England in Agawam, MA.  He asked me to go as a chaperone.  I went and was having a great time.  I love roller coasters and all the rides.  I had on a tankini top and bathing suit bottom and jean shorts.  There was a particular roller coaster where you sat in the seat and your feet dangled.  This contraption came over your head to buckle you in.  I couldn’t buckle it on my own.  The ride operator had to buckle me in.  We were in the very back row.  He had all he could do to hitch the buckle.  At the time I weighed around 220 pounds.  Later in the day Jacob wanted to ride the again.  At this point I had removed my bathing bottom because we had left the water park and just had on regular clothes.  Well, apparently the bathing suit bottom had acted as spanx.  We waited in line and he wanted to be in front.  We waited our turn and got the coveted front seat.  But no amount of tugging and pulling and shoving and sucking worked.  I was too fat to get buckled in.  I had to do the walk of shame in front of everyone off the ride. Heartbreakingly embarrassing. Jacob has always been wise beyond his years and took it very well, and said it didn’t bother him, but come on……..we all know it did.

I don’t have any major stories of embarrassing Chad, but I guarantee I did.  He just never told me and it wasn’t so obvious.  Chad was always my quiet boy, and never would have said anything.   (You noticed I said “was” my quiet boy haha – he did come out of shy shell and into is own) 

My mothers living siblings and their offspring, and their offspring, and their offspring (haha) get together every year for a post holiday celebration.  Every year there is lots of food and lots of games.  This particular year it was my Aunt Bernice’s turn to host the event and it was held in the rectory of the local church.  The chairs are super old and super unsteady.  I had been very careful because the chairs didn’t look very safe to me.  Now many people in my aunt’s family are large.  Some the same size as me, and some are larger.  None of us could be on my 600lb life, but we are big people, anyways.  I was switching back and forth from one chair to another and bam the chair breaks! I go flat on the floor in front of everyone.  Thankfully these people are family and my family is super close and we can all laugh it off, but a few years go by and we are back at this location again and I am reminded again, “Cora be careful of the chairs, remember what happened last time.”  Gee, thanks.  So, yes I am very careful and chose a folding chair this time and not a wooden chair.

I could write for days about being embarrassed because I am fat.  If you are fat, you know.  If you aren’t fat, then you are probably the one doing something to embarrass a fat person, you are snickering behind their back, commenting on what they are wearing, what they are eating, how they walk, what they are doing, what they aren’t doing, what they should be doing, etc.

For example, my husband is also a very large man.  He was that way when I met him, and I fell in love with him just exactly how he is.  He is so super shy, but he lets his size dictate many things he does in his life. If we go somewhere and there is a buffet style for food (funeral, wedding, graduation, etc) and he doesn’t know many people he probably won’t eat, or will put very little on his plate because he doesn’t want to be judged on what he puts on his plate.  When we go shopping together we will park the farthest away from the store because he is afraid that if he parks closer people will comment about that lazy, fat, slob, being too lazy to walk. 

Most of this is stuff he has created in his own mind, but unfortunately it is also based on fact.  We see the looks from people when we walk.  We see the looks from people when we are out to eat.  We see people looking in our shopping cart at the grocery store. If only they knew what those looks did to our hearts.